Emotionally Intelligent Communication: RULER Skills for Families
Emotions give us valuable information about ourselves and our environment. As a parent, developing these five skills in reference to our
emotions and our children’s emotions helps us to:
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Respond more effectively, working towards creating an emotionally connected, secure parent- child relationship
Identify the skills that we need to teach our children
Provide opportunities for modeling and practicing these skills within our family, so that our children will have the resilience to deal with life’s ups and downs
Definition
Strategy
Parent
Child
Recognizing
Using faces, body language,
physiology and tone of voice
to identify emotions
Acknowledging and validating feelings
to help your child feel heard and
understood
Becoming aware of my feelings
Becoming aware of my child’s
feelings
Understanding
Becoming aware of the
causes and consequences
of emotions and how they
influence our thoughts,
memory, judgment and
behavior
Listening with full attention and
curiosity, clarifying, connecting, and
responding nonjudgmentally to the
feelings that are driving the behaviors
What happened to make me feel What happened to make my child feel
this way? How will these feelings
this way? How will these feelings
affect my thinking, memory,
affect my child’s thinking, memory,
judgement, and behavior?
judgement, and behavior?
Labeling
Using a varied emotion
vocabulary to describe
feelings accurately
and communicate a full
range of emotions
Name it to tame it
Using more sophisticated,
nuanced feeling words as
children grow
Encouraging children to use a more
varied feeling word vocabulary
through modeling and practice
Using “I” statements to communicate
feelings and accept expression of
emotions while limiting behaviors
Making choices about how to
express my feelings in different
situations (e.g., public vs.
private)
Encouraging children to make choices
that are appropriate for different
situations (e.g, school vs. home)
Breathing to calm down, reframing,
positive self talk; have a problem
solving conversation to brainstorm
ways to shift feelings; if a desire can’t
be granted, grant the wish in fantasy
Developing helpful strategies to
shift my emotional state in order
to achieve my goals
Encouraging and supporting children
to develop strategies to manage
emotions or shift to more pleasant
emotional states
Expressing
Regulating
Being aware of when and
how to communicate
feelings appropriately
Developing and using
strategies to feel more, less,
or the same amount of an
emotion
Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
TM
ei.yale.edu
Emotionally Intelligent Communication: RULER Skills for Families
The five skills of Emotional Intelligence are taught, modeled, practiced and developed one conversation at a time.
These conversations will help your child to make sense of their experiences and learn from them.
Use the five skills of emotional intelligence to respond to:
A child’s feelings and behavior
A situation
Situation: Your first grader feels excluded from a
group of children who are planning to go to the park
together with their families. The other parents work part
time and are available to go during the week.
Situation: Your fourth grader does not get to play the
drums in the school orchestra and her teacher wants her
to play the trumpet. She walks off the school bus
appearing angry and frustrated.
“It sounds like you would have really liked to be invited to go to the
park with Courtney and Jamal and that you are feeling a bit left out.
[Recognize, Understand, and Label].
Is that how you are feeling, a little down? I’m noticing that you don’t
have much energy, your head and shoulders are down. [Express]
Would you like to tell me more about it? Oh, so you overheard
them talking and it sounded like you would be missing a lot of fun.
That must have been difficult. Is there something that you can tell
yourself that would make you feel less left out and more connected
to your friends? [Regulate] Or perhaps there is something that we can do? For instance we
could invite them on the weekend.”
“It can be disappointing when you don’t get something that you
really want [Recognize].
I Step
know
how much you really wanted to play the drums. [Understand].
3: Think
It seems like you are a little angry too. Would you like to tell me more
about that? [Labeling]
Do you think that Ms. X would be willing to hear how you feel about
this? Perhaps we can practice together – I can be her and you can be
you. What would you say? [Express].
So do you think that a trumpet would be an acceptable instrument or
would you rather have a conversation with her about the drums?
[Regulate]
If you couldn’t get to play the drums, what might be a good thing
about playing the trumpet? [Regulate]
Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
TM
ei.yale.edu